Philosophy 161

The course provides a study of the main areas of Aristotle’s works in the fields of logic, meta-physics, natural science, psychology and ethics/politics. It will end with a brief overview of his poetics and rhetoric. Aristotle was not only the first philosopher who systematized the dif-ferent disciplines of philosophy, but also worked out their basic principles and method. The course’s main concern will therefore be a proper understanding of the interconnection between the principles, method and the results of Aristotle’s thought. Given the wide scope of his in-terests, the course will have to confine itself to a selective study of his works. Since these works are hard to access because of their terse style, the readings will focus in the main on an analysis of selected texts taken from (ed.) Richard McKeon, The Basic Works of Aristotle. Requirements: Three 5 page papers, one final paper.